Native Amazons 2016-10-05

Native Amazons Modcomp V3.2

This modcomp adds a set of Amazon units to the game. They are not part of a certain civilisation, but can be used by any civilisation, as long as this civ has a access to the bonus 'Amazons'. This bonus is of course also part of this modcomp and can be explored via cottage/hamlet/village/town. Even with this bonus at hand, the Amazon units won't be available for build. Instead, each time a normal unit (unique units are excluded) with a Amazon counterpart is build, there is a certain chance for this unit to turn into that Amazon unit, depending on the number of Amazon bonuses that are present:

1 bonus -----> 20% chance (50% chance for scouts)
2 bonuses ---> 40% chance (50% chance for scouts)
>2 bonuses --> 50% chance

Also, for each unit created outside of cities (by goodyhuts or barbarians) there is a fixed 20% chance of turning out to be Amazon (again 50% for scouts).

At the time when gunpowder is discovered the Amazons bonus will become obsolete and all Amazon units (except for warriors, scouts and spies) will be converted into their male counterparts (with no cost and no loss in experience). The show is mostly over at that time.

The Amazon units have the same attributes as their male counterparts, so there is no gain and no lose in combat strengh by having them in the army. So why bother? Here are the pro and cons:

Pros:

- Upgrading Amazon units is cheaper than for normal units (20 G, regardless of the unit), as long as they are upgraded into other Amazon units.
- There is a unique Amazon unit with no male counterpart that will be available with monarchy, the Horsed Lancer unit. It has the same attributes as a Knight, but only a combat strength of 8. This unit will become the new counterpart for the Horse Archer, resulting in a chance of getting a better units than the one that was build. Further, with gunpowder this unit will be converted into a Knight.
- Some Amazon units are not exact replica of the male counterparts. This offers them the benefit of the original unit while they don't suffer their handicaps. The Axeman is replaced by the Amazon Javelin Thrower (chariots have no bonus against them) and the chariot is replaced by the Amazon Light Cavalry (they can flank attack Catapults and Phalanxes have no bonus against them).
- The replacement of the Catapult is called Amazon Skirmisher. This unit is basically identically to the Longbowman, but has only a strength of 5 and can't damage enemy to lower than 75 % in an attack. While this units looses the ability to kill enemies in an attack, it can be used quite safely to soften them up and let other units finish the job, effectly reducing the losses of the own side.
- The Amazons are quite nice to look at.

Cons:

- Upgrading Amazon units into their male counterparts before gunpowder is possible, but expensive. Thus, you might be stuck with obsolete units for a while.
- Amazon units can't be upgraded into unique units and with gunpowder they will be converted into their normal counterparts.

Now for the more technical details:

Beside for the Knight and the Explorer all ancient, classic and medieval units have an Amazon counterpart. Further there is an asian version of the Swordsman. They come completely with female voices and buttons, no extra files are needed as long as the directory structure is unchanged.

This modcomp is mostly modular. However, there are some files that can't be made modular. These files are one python file (CvEventManager) and two xml files (Audio3DScripts and AudioDefines). The changes in the python file can be found by searching for 'saibotlieh', the changes in the xml files can be found near the buttom of the files (lines 22861-23005 and lines 10979-11013). Further there is a sound folder with custom sounds that must be placed direct into the base mod Assets folder. All files in the zip-file are already put into the necessary folder, unzipping it directly in the Mods folder of BtS should result into a working mod.

In order to change the units that are not build, but created outside of the cities, the UNIT_CREATED_CALLBACK has to be enabled. This is known to slow down the performance of the game a bit. If you don't want this, just delete the NativeAmazons_PythonCallbackDefines.xml file. Everything else should work still fine without it.
The python functions that changes the units to Amazon units is written in a way that all units that have similiar named Amazon unit counterparts are targets. For example, the existence of the Unit_Amazon_Archer makes the Unit_Archer a target. So, if it is desired to add more Amazon units to this mod this is possible by just naming the new Amazon units accordingly. For example, if an Amazon Knight should be added to this mod, that unit should be named Unit_Amazon_Knight. This is also the reason why the for example the Amazon Greatswordwoman files can be found in the Amazon_Maceman folder. Of course this will only work if the 'Amazons' bonus isn't obsolete at the time that unit is build. To change the tech that makes that bonus obsolete change the xml files accordingly as well as the entry 'TECH_GUNPOWDER' under 'onTechAcquired' in the python file 'CvEventManager'.
This modcomp is written in and tested for BtS 3.19.

I hope this covers everthing. I'll see if I add some more units in the future, but I'm pretty certain that I won't go beyond medieval units. Further is to notice that I can't and don't want to claim any historical or culturally correctness of these units. Their main purpose is to serve as eye candy.

Forum link: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=348618

Credits/Thanks

- davidlallen for pushing me to the right conclusions.
- The_J for his 'Invisible dummy techs' mod that I've modified to fit to my needs (outdated, but still thankful ).
- God-Emperor for the idea to use the Civilopedia entry for turning the units invisible (outdated, but still thankful ).
- embryodead and Dancing Hoskuld for the <bGraphicalOnly> addition to the unit schema.
- strategyonly for setting one of the Civ4 Amazonian foundation stones with his amazon civ.
- Kathy's collection of Amazon units for the inspiration (and some parts of the skins).
- The makers of the FfH units from which I borrowed most of my unit heads.
- Ploeperpengel's 'female sound animations' was my starting point for my animation sounds.
- Bakuel, I used the several parts of his unit skins.
- The_Coyote for teaching me how to shader units & leaderheads.
- All the writers of the tutorial section and helpful people in the forums. Without those, I'd never have learnt how to mod in the first place.

Known bugs/errors/potential bugs

- I had some hard time to make the onUnitBuilt function to work harmonically with the onUnitCreated function, because each time a unit is build it also triggers the onUnitCreated function. Now onUnitCreated is only called when units outside of cities are created. So far this works fine, but if you run into an error, this should be the first place to look at.
- That the Amazon Warrior doesn't change into the male warrior when gunpowder is discovered is in fact not a feature, but a workaround of a bug. My function runs into an error I couldn't remove when it has to kill the old Amazon Warrior unit during the conversion.
- There was a problem with the modular CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml file. If only the entries that are to be changed present in that file, those don't work correctly anymore (Cottages don't develop into Hamlets don't develop into Villages don't develop into Towns). I think it is a problem with a changed ID that might occur because of the modular file. I've cleaned that error by putting all the BtS improvments into the NativeAmazons_CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml. This should lead to no problems when using no other modcomp that has changed improvements. Otherwise, this certainly will.

Changes to Version 3.1:

- Exchanged the python solution for the hidden 'pedia entries to the <bGraphicalOnly> in the UnitInfo.xml solution.

Changes to Version 3.0:

- Changed the NativeAmazons_CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml to make the Cottages, Hamlets, Villages and Towns work correctly again.

Changes to Version 2.0:

- Made the modcomp modular.
- Added the Amazon Skirmisher.
- Got rid of the .tga file. That one was more trouble than it's worth.

Changes to Version 1.0:

- Added several new Amazon units.
- Reworked all skins, combined some artfiles to make the units use less memory.
- Reworked some unit models.
- Added melee weapons in scabbards to the units that don't have them ready all the time. At the time they draw their melee weapons, the weapons in the scabbards disappear while the scabbards stay.
- The Amazon Warrior now uses different idle and run animations.
- Changes all ..man descriptions to ..woman. For example, Amazon Greatswordsman is now named Amazon Greatswordswoman.